


Remember (and you'll hum this tune forever)

by sleeplessflower



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: AU, Blood Kink, CEO Rhys, Kink Discovery, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Torture, gore kink, i guess?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 03:31:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13286079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeplessflower/pseuds/sleeplessflower
Summary: Jack gave him a blank, vaguely annoyed look before presenting the closed door behind him, kind of like a game show host.“And here, is door number one!” He chimed, arms fanning out in front of it. Rhys raised his brow.  The door slid open, and Jack stepped into the doorway. “I have a little lesson for you, kiddo.” He chimed, slipping into the room, Rhys following afterwards.Rhys was expecting a number of things and yet, for some reason, he wasn’t expecting this.





	Remember (and you'll hum this tune forever)

**Author's Note:**

> so this basically came from a chat iwth a friend on tumblr and uhh yeah  
> i this au its like rhys takes jacks offer to be ceo of hyperion with him, but rhys convinces jack to get a synthetic body instead of using rhys like a meatbag.  
> anyway yeas uhh rhys needs a blood kink thanks  
> title is from come on eileen by dexys midnight runners

Things had ended exactly how he wanted them to. Alright… not  _ exactly,  _ but he tells himself that so he can sleep at night. He’d left the prospect of opening a vault, of getting the last of gortys for becoming the in-partner CEO -- although it’s more like COO, Rhys can’t complain -- with Jack. once Rhys had talked Jack out of using him as a body replacement, and they agreed on getting Jack a synthetic body, he offered Rhys the job.    
_ “From what I remember, you were a trash boy, right?” Jack had said, his hand on Rhys’ shoulder. “Or uh- you got fired actually, didn't you?” Rhys had swallowed at that. He honestly, didn’t remember. Either way, it wasn’t good. He waited for Jack to continue speaking, because, here came the offer, Rhys just knew it. Jack had chuckled for a moment, an almost jovial noise. “So, either you take up my offer, or you get the hell off my space station.” he’d had his hands up, as if he were holding the offers in them. “Whadda-ya say?” _

Obviously, Rhys said yes. He got  _ considerably  _ better pay, better housing, got to stay on the space station and wasn’t dead. He’d take that for sure. And working with Jack wasn’t as bad as he thought it’d be. The first few days were filled with grovelling businessmen, apologising for their decisions while Jack was ‘away’. Rhys didn’t really care, didn’t pay much mind as he filled out various pay forms and possessions forms for Jack. he’d been dead for a couple of years, and things had changed, so him returning had really rocked the boat. Good thing Rhys knew how to do paperwork, and Jack knew how to charm him into it.

Rhys would never admit it, -- or at least he thought he’d never admit it, unbeknownst to him -- but he did have a crush on Jack. But it wasn’t like it was a big deal, or anything! It was a celebrity crush, built on who he thought Jack was and the image he’d constantly see. It wasn’t like he became more attracted to Jack after he’d been swimming around in his head. Not at all. And Jack  _ was  _ a charmer, a manipulator. So it wasn’t even Rhys’ fault. Jack just wanted to make sure Rhys did what he wanted, and in order to do that, he’d manipulate - at this point, in any one of Rhys’ defenses, Vaughn would chime in, would say, hey, wait, that doesn’t make sense. And Rhys would speak over him, and litany of ‘yeah, whatever!’ to shut Vaughn up.

And yes, sometimes Rhys would steal a look. Crush or not, Jack was his type. He was a few years older, sure -- Rhys wasn’t actually  _ sure  _ of how old Jack was, but he assumed not much older than himself, right? -- but he still had muscle definition in his arms, a well-set jaw and the confident stance that told Rhys that if this were a different universe, he would definitely be a fling.

But in this universe? Jack was his boss. Jack was a homicidal maniac.

 

Rhys stops abruptly, trying to collect himself. Jack gives him a blank, vaguely annoyed look before presenting the closed door behind him, kind of like a game show host.    
“And here, is door number one!” He chimes, arms fanning out in front of it. It’s... a standard door, nothing too special about it. Rhys raises his brow. “Okay, you - it’s just this door, so- “ Jack pauses for a moment, reading Rhys’ face. “Y’know what? Whatever.” He turns around, presumably putting in the entrance code. The door slides open, and Jack steps into the doorway. “I have a little lesson for you, kiddo.” He chimes, slipping into the room, Rhys following afterwards.

Rhys is expecting a number of things -- a chalkboard, a shooting range, paperwork, an airlock, several things swirled through his mind at once -- and yet, for some reason, he isn’t expecting  _ this. _

A man,-- he’d have to be in his early fifties, hair combed over, fair gut -- in a large, plush chair, wrists and ankles bound. Despite the air conditioning he’s sweating, his face glistening in the fluorescent lights. 

Rhys stops where he’s standing, just beyond the doorway. The door slides shut, and Rhys watches it, quickly whipping his head back afterwards. His mouth is open in question, his eyes flicking back and forth between Jack and the man. Jack laughs then, a hearty chuff, rounding the chair to place his hands on the man’s shoulders. The man bristles, jumping like he’s been stabbed when Jack rests his hands.

“What…” Rhys tries to find the words, tries to tug them from his working mind. “Jack-”

“What’s happening?” Jack interrupts. He has an expression on his face, something murderous. “I’m so glad you asked!” He pauses, taking a breath. “Yesterday I found this little Torgue spy-” Jack shakes the man’s shoulders with such glee Rhys has to advert his eyes for a moment. There’s something about it that spells disaster. “- trying to pass off as one of my accounting staff. It  _ obviously  _ didn’t work.”

“Jack, I don’t-” 

“ _ So _ ,” Jack interrupts again. “I’m going to show you the general practice for a situation like this is.” He tilts his head, just an inch, so their eyes meet better from across the room. “You know, us being co-CEOs and all, we need to be up to date with our general procedures.” Jack turns, pulling out a fiberglass tray, and Rhys watches as it hovers to sit next to the man, looks at everything sitting on its top surface. Jack has apparently noticed Rhys staring, and of  _ course  _ has to comment. “Ohhoho…” Jack begins, looking over the instruments. “ _ I know right?  _ Look at all these toys!” He picks up a corkscrew, proffers it in Rhys’ direction. When Rhys doesn’t react, he shrugs, placing it back down on the tray. “Alright,” He says. “If you don’t wanna go, I will.”

 

Rhys doesn’t feel sick, per se. He’d been through stuff similar to this. At first, when he’d started working with Jack, he had told Rhys to go to the bathroom, into another room, so he didn’t puke all over Jack’s polished obsidian floors. After a while, Rhys had gotten somewhat used to it. He’d be doing paperwork or something, checking his e-mail, and he would hear a cut-off breath, the crunch of a windpipe being crushed. 

Seeing it happen in front of him, however, was a new thing.

So Rhys watches on, part in shock, part compliant and observant as Jack picks out a pair of garden shears. He turns them in his hands, humming to himself.

“You see, Rhysie-” Jack rounds the chair again, looking back to make sure Rhys has view of what he’s going to do. “With fingers, it’s not really that hard. Like chopping a carrot.”

Jack opens the shears, sliding the bottom blade underneath the man’s fingers, making sure all four are within the span of the blades. And Rhys watches, gaze unwavering as Jack pulls the handles of the garden shears to meet.

The fingers come off with one snip, falling to the floor as the man screams in agony. When Jack brings the shears away, blood spills, trickling down the man’s flailing hand and dripping onto the chair, flicking onto the floor. Normally, Rhys would say he isn’t good with blood, but for some reason he can’t stop watching. Can’t stop looking at the four open wounds, the fingers on the floor, the blood everywhere.

“See?” Jack says. Rhys hardly looks up. “Just like that.” and Rhys just hears, manages to snap his gaze away from the man’s hand in time to see Jack back at the tray. “What next?”

Rhys looks up at Jack, looks at the small splatter of blood on his face. His mouth floods with saliva, and he has the sudden animalistic impulse to lick it off. His mind clouds for a moment, and he looks down at the tray, trying to get his mind back. He looks up at Jack, and shrugs.

“Suit yourself.” Jack says, grabbing a peeler from the tray. He moves to the man, behind him this time, like a barber letting his customer admire their new haircut. Bringing up the peeler and pressing it to the man’s skin, Rhys watches as it’s peeled away, pulled up by the peeler. Blood comes forth again, sluicing down the man’s face. Rhys watches, his eyes following the blood, watching the cut -- watching Jack’s hands as they grip and pull at the flesh. 

It continues like this, with Jack picking out an instrument, using it on the man in some way, Rhys watching on. 

By this point, Jack has blood all over. It’s caked on his hands, stained on the rolled up sleeves of his shirt, splattered on his face, his shirt, his pants. He’s grinning now, too, a ferocity, a determination in his eyes Rhys doesn’t think he’s ever seen. It looks like Jack is  _ actually  _ having fun.

Over the past hour that they’d been here, something had been trickling, slowly into Rhys’ realization. Something, that, as Jack pushes a corkscrew into the man’s eye, fully manifests into Rhys’ mind. Like the crescendo of a song, it crashes upon him.

And all at once, it’s like Rhys is looser, like he’s able to breathe, he’s back in his own mind. He keeps watching Jack, his breath stuttering minutely. While his mind has taken a while to catch up, his body has gotten along just fine. Lust -- or something akin to, something more animalistic -- curls, low in his gut, whisping up to his lungs and curling around his heart. His breath skips in time with his heart as he realizes the heaviness in his dick, the lurch it gives in his pants as Jack yanks the corkscrew out.

 

He doesn’t move. Jack’s faced partially away from him, still going away at the man. Rhys doesn’t want to tilt his head, doesn’t want to move his hand, to feel if it’s noticeable -- he’s been stock still for a little over an hour. If he moves now, Jack would surely notice.

_ What if he’s already noticed?  _ Rhys thinkst, his brow prickling with sweat. What if Jack’s already seen, is aware of Rhys’ current  _ situation  _ and is going to wait, torture him with the anxiety of it before promptly pushing him out an airlock. Rhys quietly curses to himself; he’s been going good. Of course the thing to ruin it would be his dick.

“That it?” He hears Jack say, watches him poke the man in the chair. Rhys doesn’t see his face, but from his tone he assumes Jack’s frowning. “Oh. Guess he’s dead.” Jack says afterwards, putting the corkscrew back and turning around. Rhys crosses his fingers where they are at his sides, prays to a god he hasn’t prayed to in years. “Sorry about that, pumpkin. Thought there was gonna be more juice in him.” He pushes the cart back to where he got it from, types something on his phone. The whole time, Rhys’ willing his dick to go down. This should made it flag, but for some reason doesn’t.

“I mean, you did fuck him up pretty good.” Rhys replies, hoped his voice doesn’t waver.

“Yeah, I did.” Jack chuckles to himself, puts his phone in his pocket. He looks up for a moment, silent, and Rhys thinks this is going to be the moment he’s called out, the moment that he’ll have his career -- and, subsequently, his life -- taken by Handsome Jack.

Instead, Jack walks past him and opens the door. He waves for Rhys to exit. Rhys follows as they walk down the halls, presumably to Rhys’ death.

“Look,” Jack says as they walk. “I know it’s boring or whatever, but we gotta get back to paperwork.” Did… did Jack not notice? “But,” He continues, Rhys relying on his legs to carry him. “Look, I’ll let you go home early. Little treat, from me to you.” He says, and Rhys can’t even properly process what Jack is saying, doesn’t concentrate on walking until they’ve stopped, and they’re back in Jack’s office. And Rhys almost goes to sit down, almost thinks Jack would let it slide, that he hadn't noticed.

“Woah there buddy,” Jack says, his hand on Rhys’ shoulder. And Rhys gets a flash, of when Jack had laid his hands on the man’s shoulders. “We need to have a little talk.”

“Tuh-uh-talk?” Rhys replies.

“Yeah,” Jack pauses a moment, and his eyes flick downward, and Rhys knows he’s toast. “I don’t think you really got the idea of our little exercise back there.”

“No, I uh, I know-” Rhys is quick to the jump, but Jack catches up easily. He reaches forward with his free hand, laying his hand is flat against the placket of Rhys’ pants. A sound akin to that of a wounded, scared animal escapes Rhys, and Jack meets his eyes. Jack’s hand pushes forward, applying a small amount of pressure. Rhys has to bodily force himself not to buck up into Jack’s grip, their eyes still locked. Jack’s still, maintaining eye contact for ten solid seconds of silence before he pulls away, wiping his still-bloody hands on his shirt. 

“Go home early sweetheart,” Jack said, moving to his desk. “You look kind of sick. Wouldn’t want to catch anything.” Rhys looks at the ground, where Jack had stood. “That’s an  _ order  _ Rlys.” Jack’s voice hardens, and Rhys finds enough of his composure to scrabble out of Jack's office.

**Author's Note:**

> uhhng if you liked, tell me ! i always appreciate it!  
> but guess what? i love kudos too !  
> uhh and no matter what hopefully i get a chapter 2 out


End file.
